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FS2004 Are there issues with CAT animations?

E

ecagan

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I wrote an issue in the GMax forum about my first attempt at doing animations. In my case, I'm attempting to get a hangar door to animate. I've been able to get the animations to repeat endlessly in FS, but when I attempt to use CAT, FS crashes when I load that modified model. I've seen other threads in this forum about the issue, but I haven't seen many posted solutions. My question is if there is a problem with CAT or are there limitations on models when using conditional animations? I know the ability to do conditional animations exists, since many have done it successfully. I'm not sure what the limitations are though. I have read that there is a limitation of 1024 frames of animation, but in my case, I'm no where near that. Arno, in another thread, seemed to imply that file size can an issue. I'm not clear if it's the GMax or model file size though that's the issue. My attempt here is to gather info from those that have done animation successfully to get the gotchas consolidated (possibly for either a sticky post or wiki article).
Thanks,
Eric
 
arno

arno

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Hi Eric,

Issues have been reported with objects that have a very complex scenegraph. Simple said that means too many animated parts. The file size is an indication of this.

How complex is your animation? Is the door just one part of does it consist of many separate parts?
 
E

ecagan

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Hi Arno,
The GMax file is of a hangar with animated doors. It's about 1.7 MB. I have a model of a hose that adds significantly to the poly count, but I tried exporting only the hangar and it still failed (remaining file size was < 1 MB). There are 6 doors that are animated, all triggered by the same NAV 2 freq. I don't consider it very complex, but not sure in the grand scope of things since I've never animated doors like this. All animations are complete in 75 frames. Others have offered help in the GMax forum. I haven't had the time yet to see specifically what the issue is. I do have transparencies in the girders. I believe one of the testers was able to get it working by separating the doors from the rest of the model. I can try that and see what happens.
Eric
 
arno

arno

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OK. I you really can't get it working, you can send me the model and I will take a look where the issue is.
 
E

ecagan

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Arno,
I got help in getting it to work. I believe it may have been an animation key issue, with more than 2 keys per door. Not sure if that's a limitation of FS. I'll have to take the time to create another animation and use CAT again to see if I can get it to work myself.
Eric
 
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